How
the credit card industry is contributing to pollution
By Odysseas Papadimitriou
We all get far too much mail, especially from financial services
companies. Credit card companies alone send billions of pieces of paper
mail each year, and most of that gets thrown right into the trash can.
Not only does this dynamic pose a threat from a fraud perspective – trash cans
and mailboxes can be treasure troves for opportunistic fraudsters – but you
have to figure the effect on the environment isn’t great either.
Paper products aren’t as bad as most materials, according to North
Carolina State University Professor Richard Venditti, because they’re
renewable, recyclable and biodegradable and they motivate land owners to plant
trees. However, Venditti says, “inefficient use of paper does consume
resources and have an impact on the environment.”
These
changes are largely based on the shifting preferences of the modern consumer as
well as the overall technicalization of modern commerce – not some newfound
corporate altruism – but does it really matter?
Unfortunately, wasted paper may not be the only environmental
concern tied to credit cards. There are roughly 1.2 billion credit cards
in circulation in the United States alone, and they expire or get lost all the
time. What effect does that have on the environment?
“In the US, around 30 million tons or 60 billion pounds of
plastics are discarded annually, with only around 7% of them recycled,” Dr.
Samantha MacBride, assistant professor at Baruch College and former deputy
director for recycling at the New York City Department of Sanitation, told
CardHub. The effect of credit cards on the environment, she says, pales
in comparison to that of plastic bags, containers, toys, and personal hygiene
products.
It all adds up, though. And if you were to add all of the
credit cards in circulation on top of one another – like stack them up – you
would get a mountain as high as 13 Mount Everests.
As a result, with consumers becoming more environmentally focused,
credit card issuers are increasingly using their cards’ basic materials as a
point of differentiation.
Chase’s Sapphire Preferred Card is made of
metal, for example, and when it expires the company will send you an envelope
so that you can return it for safe disposal.
The American Express
Centurion Card is made from titanium, and the Visa Black Card is made of
carbon. “Biodegradable” is a word you often hear bandied about in this
regard as well.
There are a couple of major reasons why you should ignore such
gimmicks.
Biodegradable may not really mean biodegradable at the end of the
day. How such terms are defined and the manner in which they are used in
advertising has garnered a great deal of legal scrutiny in recent years.
Perhaps that is why Discover no longer offers its so-called biodegradable Green
Credit Card.
“The bulk of a credit card can be biodegradable, if produced from
polymers derived from plants,” Venditti says. “The magnetic stripes and
other metallic inks on the other hand, may not be biodegradable portions.”
What’s more, the plastic or metal from which your credit card is
made will not save you any money. Nor will the picture on the front of
your card or any other cosmetic feature. The rates, rewards and fees
associated with your card are all that matter. And the more money you
save yourself via attractive credit card terms, the more you can donate to an
environmental charity – if efficiently helping the environment is your ultimate
goal.
Either way, the intersection of the mobile advancements and
increased consumer awareness will undoubtedly lead to a smaller footprint from
the financial services industry in the years to come. For now, however,
there is still a great deal of work to be done.